


Some raven, at my window with a broken wing

by belmanoir



Series: Security 'verse [3]
Category: Hard Core Logo (1996), Kyle XY
Genre: Crossover, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billie comes for a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some raven, at my window with a broken wing

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in blackcurrant's "Security" 'verse, in which Tom Foss bodyguarded Billy Tallent when Joe Dick was haunting him.

_This song is for the soil_  
 _that's toxic clear down to the bedrock,_  
 _where no thing of consequence can grow_  
 _drop your seeds there, let them go_

"Cotton," The Mountain Goats

"Hey, uh, I talked to Mary."

Tom looks up. "What did she say?"

"I was really fucking charming and apologetic, and she said Billie could come up next Friday and stay the weekend."

Tom blinks. "That's great," he says after a moment.

Billy doesn't look so sure. "You don't mind, do you? I mean if you don't want to deal with it, I don't mind if you take off, come back when the carnage is over."

"Is that what you want?"

"Oh, don't pull that crap."

Tom frowns.

"She's my kid. You can meet her if you fucking want to."

Tom's frown deepens.

###

Tom shuts all the windows and turns up the heat before he picks up Billy from work. It's 28 degrees outside. He hopes the approximately forty-five minutes it takes to drive to the bookstore, wait for Billy to finish chatting with Jenny, and drive back will be enough time for the apartment to warm up. 

It's raining out. When they get home, Billy races to the door and digs in his pocket for his keys for only a moment before giving up and waiting for Tom to catch up with him. Tom knows he should say something now, but instead he lets them in and follows Billy up the two flights to their apartment. 

Billy wrinkles his nose as soon as he opens the door. "What is that fucking smell? And Jesus, it's freezing in here." He goes to the thermostat. "Hey, it's already on seventy-five. Do you think the heat's broken? Maybe something died in here, that would explain the smell. Fucking slum." 

"I was airing out the apartment. Billie has asthma."

Billy blinks. "And the smell?"

"I read that boiling vinegar gets rid of the smell of smoke. It worked pretty well, and the vinegar smell should dissipate within a day or too."

Billy gives him a look he can't figure out. "You know I'm just going to stink it up again." He sheds his overcoat, taking his pack of cigarettes out of the pocket. 

"You shouldn't smoke inside again until she's gone."

_"What?"_

"You shouldn't smoke inside again until she's gone."

"Yeah, I--you couldn't have done this in a few days? She won't be here till Friday!"

"I still need to deep-clean the apartment. It's important to allow the dust a day or two to settle. Otherwise cleaning can be worse for an asthmatic than letting the dirt sit."

"You want me to go outside to smoke in the fucking rain and sleet. I'm just clarifying here."

Tom raises his eyebrows expectantly.

Billy glares at him and puts his overcoat back on. Tom follows him to the door. "What are you doing?" Billy demands.

Tom shrugs.

"You don't have to keep me company, it's cold out there."

"I don't mind the cold."

"Of course you don't," Billy mutters. He shivers his way through half a cigarette before Tom can't stand it anymore.

"Do you want my sweater?"

Billy gives him an incredulous look. "I'm already wearing a sweater and an overcoat."

"You look cold."

"So do you."

"I'm not cold."

"Our apartment is right through that door," Billy says. "If I want another fucking sweater I'll go get one. How about some body heat?" 

Tom blinks. Then he turns Billy so he's facing the door and stands behind him, his back to the cold. Billy laughs and shuffles backward until his wet overcoat is flush along Tom's front. Tom feels a strange, crawling pressure under his skin, halfway between fear and an itch. He wraps his arms around Billy, and when Billy tilts his head back onto Tom's shoulder, he leans forward and presses his nose into the crook of Billy's neck, the itch fading. Billy mostly smells like smoke. Tom doesn't mind. He shuts his eyes and breathes in.

Billy chuckles. "You're like a human obscene phone call, you know that?"

Tom stiffens. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I think you breathe more than other people. Or you're just louder."

Tom draws back, and Billy puts his arm up over Tom's to hold him there. "It's not an insult. But like yesterday when you were blowing me, I think you were making more noise than _I_ was. It was fucking hot."

Tom swallows. He doesn't know what to say. The itch is back. 

###

Tom goes to Billy's storage unit and brings one of the acoustic guitars home. When Billy gets home from work and sees it, he starts as if it were a rattlesnake. "Where the fuck did that come from?"

"You told Billie you'd teach her to play the guitar."

"I can't teach her on that. It's been out of tune since 1998."

"I tuned it."

Billy's eyes widen. "You did _what?_ " He strides to the case and snaps it open, carrying the guitar to the couch. He strikes a few chords and winces at the tone. "Fuck, Tom, I think you killed it. Do not ever fucking touch these pegs, you get me? If you need a guitar tuned, I will do it, and if I need someone killed I'll ask you, capiche?" Tom feels chilled. There's no way Billy could know, though. To him, it's just a tasteless joke. Billy adjusts the pegs and plays another chord. "Fuck, it's no use. It needs at least three new strings."

Tom doesn't smile. "We'll pick them up on the way home from the bookstore tomorrow."

Billy's eyes narrow. 

###

Tom frames a picture of Billie and puts it on the mantel. Their apartment is in an old building so they have a mantel, even if the fireplace is bricked in. Billy frowns when he sees it. "That's ridiculous. It's the only picture in the whole place, she'll know it's fake."

"You could put up more."

" _You_ could put up more. This entire apartment is filled with my stuff." 

Tom doesn't have any stuff. Neither, really, does Billy. The apartment reminds him of his furnished apartment in Seattle. It's messier, but it has that same air of impermanence and falsehood, of being just for show. That doesn't matter. It's not just for show. 

###

He should have put away the groceries before Billy got home, but he forgot. Billy pulls the sack of flour and the tin of baking powder out of the bag on the counter and stares at them. "Who are you, Betty fucking Crocker? Are you planning on baking something?"

Tom makes space in the cabinet. "I thought we could make pancakes when Billie's here."

Billy's head snaps up. "Pancakes aren't going to turn us into the Tragers, you know."

Tom shuts the cabinet door with a click and heads for the living room. Billy puts his hand on his arm. "Hey. 911. I shouldn't have said that."

Tom stands very still, looking at Billy's hand on his arm. He can feel the tightness in his face.

"Look, I just--I don't make Billie _pancakes_ , okay? I take her to the diner. We got our own thing."

Tom doesn't care about the pancakes. But it bothers him that Billy understood what they meant. He's been careless.

"I'm sorry I hurt your feelings."

"You didn't hurt my feelings."

"Sure I did. Come on, say it. 'Billy, you're an asshole and you hurt my feelings.'"

Tom is silent.

"Look, what do you want? You want to hit me, will that make you feel better?" He lets go of Tom and juts his chin up in invitation.

Tom is appalled. "I would never hit you."

Billy's had enough of being conciliating. He draws away sharply. "Yeah, you're a fucking saint." He goes outside for a cigarette, slamming the door in Tom's face when Tom tries to follow him.

###

Tom loans Billy his car so he can pick Billie up at the bus station on his own. He wants to ask Billy what he's going to tell her about the two of them, so that their stories can match, but he doesn't. He waits in the kitchen making coffee, not sure if Billie drinks coffee but thinking that it might be strange to wait on the couch. Billy hasn't driven in a while. Tom wonders how he's dealing with traffic. He's relieved when the door opens and he hears voices. Billy sounds awkward but happy, and so does the girl. 

"Hey, Tom!" Billy calls. "You around?" He throws Tom his keys the second he appears in the doorway. Tom starts backward but manages to catch them by reflex. Billy grins at him. "I didn't total your car...this time."

"Yeah, it's only a scratch," Billie says. Tom frowns. "Just kidding," she says. She's a tall girl with long, tangled dark blond curls. She's wearing jeans, a novelty T-shirt, an enormous sweater, and a crocheted hat. The look reminds him of Josh's girlfriend. She doesn't look anything like Billy, but her grin has the same combination of sweetness and potential for malice. "I'm Billie." She has a firm handshake.

"Tom," he says.

"I figured, unless Billy has other roommates I don't know about."

Roommate. They only have two bedrooms. Is he supposed to pretend Billie is sleeping in his and take the couch? He doesn't mind, but it won't be very convincing. Billy sends an apologetic smirk in his direction. "Nope, just Tom. C'mon, it's late, let's get you set up in the spare room."

Tom is pulling an extra blanket out of the closet when Billy comes into their room. "What's that for? It's not any colder than last night. Were you cold?"

"I was going to sleep on the couch."

Billy's eyebrows shoot up. "Well hello, Mr. Overreaction."

"What?"

"Look, I didn't know how to tell her, okay? Mary's turned into kind of a hippie so I'm sure Billie doesn't care, I just--"

"I'm not angry. She'll notice we're sharing a room." _A bed_ , he thinks.

Billy shrugs. "I'm gonna have to buy a gag for you one of these days."

"What?"

"I just don't think you can be quiet on your own, and that means no sex for three days."

Tom watches him uncertainly.

Billy shakes his head. "I'm not used to being the talkative one." Tom doesn't know what to say to that. Billy sighs as he changes into his pajama pants. "It's a good thing you're a champion spooner," he says, and crawls under the covers, his back to Tom. 

At least that comment was fairly unambiguous. Tom strips to his undershirt and boxers and gets in bed, slinging his arm over Billy and pulling him snug against him. He likes sleeping this way. He knows Billy's safe.

###

The next morning, when Tom gets back from his morning run, he opens the door silently. He toes off his shoes, pads silently down the hall, and stands against the wall outside the kitchen door. Eavesdroppers rarely hear about themselves at all, in his experience--if you want to get useful information, the odds are you'll have to listen in for at least several hours. Billy and his daughter are talking about movies. She thinks he should see some kung fu movie. "There are dance routines with axes," she's saying. Tom can tell Billy is only pretending to consider it. He wonders if Billie can tell, too. Either way, she trails off and asks abruptly (he got lucky, this time), "So is Tom your boyfriend?"

There's a long silence. Tom holds his breath. Billy might think he can't be quiet, but he can. "I don't know," Billy says finally. "It's complicated."

"But you are, you know..."

Billy laughs. "If you're too young to say it, you're too young to do it."

There's a pause. "I don't do it, actually," Billie says snidely. "So are you two fucking?"

"Watch your mouth, young lady," Billy says, and the two of them giggle. "Look, I--yeah, we are," and they go back to talking about movies.

Tom heads back to the door. This time he makes noise.

Billy gives him a narrow-eyed look when he walks into the kitchen. "Were you just eavesdropping?"

Tom looks at Billie, who looks half-amused and half-embarrassed. "Why, were you talking about me?"

"I just never hear you walk in unless you want me to," Billy says. 

Tom is annoyed. Is he too loud, or isn't he? Billy can't have it both ways. 

"So no guys, huh?" Billy asks his daughter.

Billie looks suddenly cornered. "Nah," she says with aggressive unconcern.

"Pretty girl like you, I'd think they'd be knocking down the door." 

If Tom's learned one thing over the past couple of years, it's that you should never ask a teenage girl why she's single. He coughs meaningfully, but it's too late. 

"Maybe once I'm in college," Billie says nastily, "and meet a guy who hasn't asked me if I'd like a fuck in the back of his van at least twice a week since I was twelve." Tom is shocked. He looks at Billy. 

Billy has turned almost gray. He knows what she's talking about, and Tom doesn't. It's frustrating. Billy and his daughter stare at each other for a few moments in silence, and then Billie whirls on her heel and leaves the kitchen. A few seconds later the door to her room slams. "Billy--" Tom begins.

Billy walks past him, bumping his shoulder hard. Tom follows him into the living room. Billy jams his overcoat on and goes out the door. Tom waits for a moment, indecisive. Billie shouldn't be left alone. He follows Billy down the stairs anyway.

Billy looks up when Tom opens the door to the outside. "Fuck off."

Tom shuts the door to keep the cold air out of the stairwell. "What's she talking about?"

Billy gestures angrily with his cigarette. "It's from the movie. Fucking Bruce."

"The movie?" Tom knew he should have made more of a push to find it. But he'd looked, and it was nowhere to be found. He'd even written Bruce McDonald, the director, and never heard back.

"The _Hard Core Logo_ movie," Billy says with a sarcastic flourish. "I saw Billie for the first time on the tour. I wanted to know if she was mine, so I asked Joe if he'd been sleeping with Mary too. And Joe said, no, but he fucked her in the back of the van once." Tom's heart sinks. Billy sighs. "I can't believe she's seen the movie. I can't believe her _friends_ have seen the movie. Shit. She never said a fucking word."

"Joe said that about her mother, not you," Tom points out.

Billy grimaces. "Yeah, but I laughed."

"You should talk to her."

Billy hunches over. "I should this, I should that."

"You're her father," Tom says, louder than he meant to. "You can't just pretend the whole conversation never happened!"

Billy gives him a nasty look. "You both think I'm an asshole anyway. I'll just be an asshole out here with my fucking cigarette."

Tom knots his fingers together and presses, hard. Then he goes upstairs and knocks on Billie's door.

"Come in," Billie says in a subdued voice. Tom opens the door. Billie looks disappointed to see him, and he feels a pang. "911, huh?" she asks.

Billy had said that, too, about the pancakes. "911?"

"He didn't tell you about 911? It's a thing he and his band used to do. It means you hurt someone's feelings. He told me about it the first time I ever came to spend the weekend with him, when I was like eight. He said it was because when you live with someone, hurting their feelings is an emergency, and I should always tell him if he hurt my feelings." She snorts. "I guess he never promised to listen."

Tom tries to imagine Billy saying that, and can't.

"Look, I'm sorry I drama-ed all over you. This isn't your fault. I was just being petty and jealous."

He frowns. "Jealous?"

She looks away. "You know, of you. Because I just thought Billy couldn't love anyone but Joe, and that was why, you know--but he loves you, so--"

Is that true? Tom doesn't know. "Your dad loves you."

Her expression reminds him of Jessi, a little. Hopeful and angry together. "He never wanted me. It's not just that thing in the movie, he put it in his fucking book too. He _published_ it. 'Bill keeps hoping that one day, Marti will stop wanting to bother. She only agreed to visitation once Bill stopped fighting her. Like, that is how she punishes him: by giving him exactly what he had asked for.'" She says it flatly, like it doesn't mean anything, but she memorized it. 

Tom remembers the passage. It irked him when he read the book. "That's fiction."

She makes an expression Tom recognizes from Billy's face, raised eyebrows and a pursed, raised mouth as if her face is shrugging. He feels sorry for Billy, for how he never really got to be a father. Nothing was ever easy for him. "He just didn't have the guts to write a tell-all memoir," she says. "And that stupid picture on the mantel. Like I wouldn't know he just put it up for my visit." She yanks her hat farther onto her head. "Look, it's not that bad, at school. It was bad in middle school but everyone's mostly forgotten about it now. I'm just tired of people asking me why I don't have a boyfriend. Why would he even assume I like guys? Look at _him._ It's fucking hypocritical. And it pisses me off that I even care. I mean, I already _have_ a family." She sighs. "Oh crap, here I go again. Honestly, I don't--you seem nice. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty."

Tom wishes he could explain about Joe. "Maybe he's just ready to move on," he suggests. "People change." 

"Not very often."

He agrees with her, but he wants--Billy does love her. Tom is sure of that. "When someone you love dies because of you, it's hard to let someone else take that risk." 

Her eyes sharpen on him with the strange openness and fury of adolescence. "How do you know?"

He shouldn't tell her. But she's just a child, Billy's child, and she deserves the truth. She deserves to understand. Besides, Billy isn't paying Tom to protect him anymore, but it's still Tom's responsibility. He watches a spot on the wrinkled comforter. "I killed my wife and daughter in a drunk driving accident." 

She gasps. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I had no idea." He can't look at her. "And--did you stop loving people after that?"

He laughs. "No. But I stopped letting them love me back."

Too late he registers the sound of Billy breathing. He turns his head. Billy is watching him, tight-lipped. Tom's heart pounds harder. He thinks of Madacorp, of Hollander saying she had orders to kill him. He turns his face away and waits. He's furious at his own negligence. How did Billy get the door open and walk across the living room without him hearing? He'll have to wipe the oil from the hinges and warp one of the floorboards. He's been meaning to, anyway.

"Tom, can I talk to you in the other room for a minute?" Billy says evenly. Tom nods at Billie, who gives him a sympathetic smile and waves goodbye. He follows Billy into their room and shuts the door, eying him warily.

"Were you ever planning to tell me that?" When Billy doesn't get an answer, he yanks Tom's alarm clock out of the wall and smashes it on the floor. "Jesus fucking Christ, Tom, all those months with Joe, all the shit that came out of my mouth--and you never said a fucking word. You liked making me look like the only fuck-up in the room, didn't you? You sadistic fuck." 

Tom lets his arms hang at his side, leaving himself open. Billy's right. He hadn't ever planned to tell him. 

"You're still not going to say anything, are you? Sometimes I feel like I'm fucking talking to myself. Like I really am crazy."

"You're not crazy."

"Yeah, I know that. You are." 

Tom chews on his lip. "I'm sorry."

"Too bad. You're an asshole and you hurt my feelings. You're sleeping on the couch tonight."

Tom is suddenly angry. "Fine. You know something, you have no idea how lucky you are."

Billy sneers. "What, for having you?"

Tom laughs shortly. "No."

###

He should probably go out, but he doesn't want to leave Billy and Billie alone. He sits on the couch and reads the mystery he bought at the bookstore last time Billy had to work overtime. It's about lesbian detectives with cats who live in a cottage in Cape Cod. He's strangely fascinated by their lives.

After a while, Billy comes in and picks up the guitar case. He doesn't look at Tom. A minute later, Tom hears low voices from the back of the apartment. Then the voices become intermittent and mangled chords take their place.

About fifteen minutes later, he hears Billy singing. He's never heard Billy sing when he's sober. He gets up and goes through the kitchen to the hallway. The door to Billie's room is open. He stands in the doorway. Billy's voice falters. The song is "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

_"So many times I've let you down_  
So many times I've played around  
I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing  
Every place I go, I'll think of you  
Every song I sing, I'll sing for you--" 

"I hate that song," Billie says.

Billy stops, but he doesn't take his hands off the guitar. "I didn't pick it for its musical genius, padawan. I picked it because it's only got three chords. It's the first thing I ever learned to play." 

"How did Joe feel about that?" Billie asks.

Billy laughs. "I never told him. He'd never have let me live it down."

Billie looks surprised. "How old were you when you started playing?"

Billy thinks. "Ten? Eleven? The guitar my mom bought me was a piece of shit, too."

Tom's never thought about Billy and music as something separate from Joe. It startles him.

"Look, I'd teach you 'Judy is a Punk' but it's stupid to do that acoustic and anyway it's a much faster song. Just learn this one first."

Billie smiles at him and nods, reaching for the guitar. In some ways, she and Billy are strangers, but they're also comfortable with each other in ways Tom didn't expect. He goes back to the living room and tries not to strain to hear them.

###

He's uncomfortable sleeping on the couch. It surprises him. Usually he can sleep anywhere. But he tosses and turns, and by four o'clock he's wide awake. It's just as well. He wants to be up before Billie so she doesn't realize she's caused a fight between him and Billy. He puts away his blanket, gets dressed, and reads. At nine he goes to the kitchen to practice making pancakes. 

He's just figuring out that the heat should be turned down pretty low when Billie comes in and crinkles her nose at the burned smell. "Here, let me," she says. 

Tom has only recently learned this from Kyle and Jessi, the simple joy of a kid who finds out they're better at something than an adult. He waits until she's benevolently watching him eat a round, lightly browned pancake smothered in syrup before saying, "Don't give up on your dad."

She looks away. "I'm not like him. I don't abandon people I care about." She looks back. "You'll take care of him, right? And call me if anything goes wrong? I--" She bites her lip, then says in a rush, "Mom thinks my asthma attack last time I was here was from Billy smoking, but it wasn't. Last time I was here--or not here, but, you know, at his apartment from before--he passed out on the couch and it caught fire and I had to put it out. I just--I worry about him."

Tom remembers the cigarettes Joe left burning everywhere, the ones he used to think were Billy being careless. He's glad Joe's dead, because Billy wouldn't forgive Tom for killing him. He wants to explain that Billy is safe now, but she wouldn't understand. "I'll take care of him," he promises instead, and finishes his pancake.

Billy appears in the doorway in his bathrobe. He looks at Tom. "Good morning," Tom says. 

Billy nods and makes an uncertain gesture with his shoulders. "I slept like shit."

_Me too,_ Tom thinks. He rubs at his sore neck and glances up at Billy. Billy smiles.

###

Tom is watching TV when Billy comes back from dropping Billie at the bus station. He stands in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and watches Tom. Tom turns off the TV and waits.

"I, uh--" Billy scratches the back of his head. "I never told Joe I loved him. Not straight out. I said it to the fucking cameras, but I didn't--but, you know, if you gave Joe an inch, you ended up with combat boot prints all over your clothes. And I--it was nice not having to do the work. You know what I mean? I liked him doing it. I don't--I'm not saying I've grown up, because I'm pretty sure I haven't." He pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He stands there for a moment, and then he comes over and hands it to Tom. Tom unfolds it. Written on the paper in Billy's cramped scrawl is _I love you do you love me check yes or no_ , and underneath two little boxes marked _Y_ and _N_.

Tom blinks hard. "I--" His voice cracks. "I don't have a pen."

"Fuck, you're a dink."

"Yeah."

"Is that yeah you're a dink, or yeah you love me?"

"Both."

Billy sits down next to him on the couch. "Thought so," he says smugly.

###

The next time he's home alone, he opens up the locked trunk he keeps in the spare room and takes out the picture of Sara and Erica. He puts it up next to the one of Billie that neither of them have taken off the mantel. It feels good to see them there. It feels like home. He missed them.

When Billy gets back, he stands in front of the picture looking for a few seconds. "They look like good people," he says. Tom doesn't say anything. Billy waits, then takes the guitar out of its case and sits on the couch. Tom doesn't recognize any of the songs he plays, but the first one starts _My love, she speaks like silence,_ and when Billy sings it, he smiles at Tom. Tom likes the song.

Tom comes home from work one day and there's a picture of Joe and Billy on the mantel. A blurry, crinkled snapshot of the two of them dressed--Tom can't imagine why--as the Beatles. Billy's smoking and grabbing his crotch, and Joe's flipping off the camera, his hand on Billy's shoulder.

It takes a couple of weeks for Tom to get up the nerve, but finally he opens the trunk again and takes out the envelope he got from Jessi a few months ago. Hillary's gotten into photography, and she's going through the inevitable black-and-white phase. Jessi sent him a few of Kyle beaming at the camera, one frowning shot of her, and then a series of the two of them in fedoras and curly eyeliner mustaches. He chooses one where Jessi's laughing and puts it up. The mantel is starting to look like the Tragers' wall.

A few days later a letter comes in the mail from Billie. Billy opens it and dumps some 4x6 photos on the table. It's the pictures of her and her father that Billie made Tom take before she left. They came out great. She'd insisted on taking one of him and Billy, too. He hates being photographed, but Billy slung an arm over his shoulders and Tom tried to smile.

"Look at you, you look like a cannibal," Billy says. "Frame it."


End file.
